Et Je T'aime Encore
by Eggman Oyu Castle
Summary: I Love You Still On Hiatus. I'mma have to rewrite this one and continue. Ugh.
1. Sakura Or Itachi

**Chapter One : Sakura Or Itachi **

It was early in the winter. The days were becoming colder, and there was a constant haze over the village. Sakura had easily convinced Kakashi that it would be better for us to all train a little less every day, at least, until the winter was over. Bless her for that, but Kakashi had decided that, for that day, seeing as he was sick and wouldn't have to be in the cold himself, we would have to train twice as long. Naruto just made the whole situation seem worse by complaining the entire time, but we made it through the day without Naruto giving me sufficient reason to pummel him.

After our long day of training together, we were walking home. We all had neighboring rooms, so we all went home together, every day. It was never too bad. . . . I just had to ignore the very beautiful girl walking next to me. Yes, she was constantly flirting with me, and I was always rejecting her, but . . . I had always loved her. I would not let her get in the way of my goal to kill my older brother, though. I hated that I had to continue pushing her away, and I hated that she was hurting so much and all because of me. . . . But I needed to feel more hate, right? To become stronger? Besides, if I ever revealed the tiniest amount of softness, if she ever observed anything to hint I liked her at all, she would pounce on it and never let it go. Sakura would never leave me alone, and she might eventually make me submit to her loveliness.

Naruto was making a bigger fool of himself than usual, stumbling dumbly over his words as he hit on Sakura. Sakura appeared to be ignoring him, for once, as she walked wearily through the haze. She would have normally put her fist to his face and let him know she wasn't interested in doing anything he was interested in doing with her. Something was up with Sakura, but I wasn't going to ask, though I didn't like seeing her in the state she was in.

Maybe it was just because of the cold. It was definitely cold, and it was only going to be much colder as the winter went on.

We were glad to be out of the cold, when we made it to our rooms. Naruto's was on the right, Sakura's was on the left, and, of course, mine was between theirs. I walked over and sat on my bed.

I thought about Itachi and how angry I felt, at myself, for not being strong enough, and at him for being stronger than me. It wasn't long, though, before Sakura made her way into my mind. I imagined her turning around and smiling at me. I could hear her voice calling my name in that drawn out way. For a moment, I even felt a desire to . . . Be with her.

No, I was not going to let love or Sakura get in my way. I would kill Itachi. I would kill him and nothing was going to stop me. But . . . I loved Sakura. Sometimes I even felt I loved her more than I hated my traitorous brother. I could not stand seeing the sadness in her eyes I saw every time she looked at me lately. . . .

Sakura. Itachi. . . . Sakura . . . Itachi. . . . Sakura. . . .

I would run away. That's what I would do. Sakura was definitely making it harder for me to feel anger all the time. But where would I run to? Preferably somewhere safe. But was there any safe place? Yes, anywhere would be safe enough, and if it wasn't, I would make it safe.

There was a loud noise, similar to several bookshelves falling over, coming from Naruto's room. The idiot, he would wake Sakura! But, a few moments later, a sound, similar to a bear wading through a landfill, coming from Sakura's room told me she was already awake, anyway.

I would think some more, when morning came, but I doubted I would get to sleep any time soon.

There will definitely be more to come. Please review. Hope you enjoyed and will enjoy!! And don't worry. The second chapter will be much more exciting .grins evilly


	2. Running Away

**Chapter Two: Running Away**

I had decided to run away. Possibly straight to Itachi. Possibly to become stronger with Orochimaru. Possibly to somewhere else to get stronger. I didn't know. I was just going to run away. As fast as I could, I would run, getting as much space between Sakura and I as I could. I could feel no emotion, I must run and let other thought into my mind but to run. . . . But I must see Sakura. I must get one last look at her before I left. She would look so serene, sleeping in her bed. . . . But if I looked at her, I might not be able to leave her. I might sit at her bedside, until she awoke, and tell her of all my love. . . . But that would show she meant more to me than Itachi, and that I should stay. Yes, I must see Sakura, at least once more.

As silently as possible, I walked out of my room and closed my door. I stood in front of the door to Sakura's room. Before opening the door, I tried to imagine what she would look like. My heart was starting to beat faster, but I had almost always ignored my heart, before. I opened the door and immediately noticed two things, the first of which being that Sakura's room was much, much messier than I had ever seen it before. Second, I noticed an inexplicable absence of Sakura. I could not, or would not, believe that she wasn't there. Where could she be, I wondered.

Then, I saw, on her bed, an open scroll. I made my way across the room to read it. There were several small, darker dots, and they told me Sakura had been crying when she had been writing. I felt a cold shiver down my back, when I saw it was not addressed to me.

_Naruto,_

_I expect it will be you who reads this, because Sasuke will probably not care. Sasuke has never noticed me. I gave up everything else, because I wanted him so much more. I thought he might care about me, but I was wrong. He still hasn't noticed me. I doubt Sasuke will even notice I'm gone. _

_I would tell you not to come looking for me, but I know you would anyways. I would tell you I didn't want you to find me, but if you were to look for and find me, I would know you really care about me. Maybe you're the one for me, Naruto, I don't know. I'm unsure of a lot of things. I just know . . . I know I have to get away from . . . Away from Sasuke._

_Sakura_

Sakura had gone, she had run away. . . . She had beat me to it. I wasn't too upset about her leaving. I had been ready to leave, myself, and I would have been without her, then too. I was upset, though, to find out she was hurting a lot more than I had thought she was, and she had decided she wanted to be away from me. And the thought of Sakura with Naruto . . . It made me shudder. . . . I had to find Sakura. I had to make her come back.

I heard someone walking behind me, and I thought it might be Sakura. But no, it was Naruto.

"What's up?" he asked with a stupid look on his face.

"Sakura is gone. She ran away."

Naruto had a blank look on his face for a few moments, then he said, "Where could she have run away to? . . . If I were Sakura, where I would I hide? . . . Or maybe she went somewhere we wouldn't think she would think of going. . . ."

"Or maybe she thought we would be thinking of where she would think of going, and she has gone somewhere she knows we will never think of looking to find her," I said, in one quick breath.

Naruto looked at me, astonished. He was silent for another couple of minutes. "So where do you think she went, Sasuke?"

I stood, silent for a minute, thinking. Then, I said, "I have no idea where she might have gone."


	3. Naruto And His Mind

**Chapter Three: ****Naruto And His Mind **

Naruto was surprised, and I could tell, for he always referred to me as 'the smart dude'. I knew he was wondering what we were going to do, if I hadn't thought of anything. Being the idiot he was, I could have no idea what he would do next. "So what do we do?" I could have laughed, hearing him say that, but I was not, nor was I ever, in a mood to laugh. After noticing I was just staring, he said, "Sasuke, we have to do something! We can't just do nothing!" Well, he did have a point, there. I could have given him a pat on the back, for making his first ever point, but, again, I was not, nor was I ever, in the mood to pat someone on the back. Naruto turned away from me, and I noticed his fists clenching. His voice came out in a rough whisper.

". . . Sakura." I jumped, hearing him say the name. Sakura, she was gone, and I had no clues as to where she had gone. "I will-"

"Sakura," I said, interrupting Naruto. I realized I couldn't remember the last time I had said her name aloud, before tonight. "She has run away, and I'm here, thinking about your idiocy." Even though his back was to me, I could tell Naruto was surprised and a little confused. He slowly turned to me. "I need to find her." Naruto swallowed audibly, and he nodded. He, too, loved Sakura, and I could see all the many reasons why. But he and I were not a 'we', he and I could never be a 'we'. I knew, though, that he would want to try and find her. "We need to do something." There, I had said 'we', anyways, and I wondered why.

"So where should we look?" Naruto asked, looking worried.

"I thought we had established the fact that neither of us has any ideas of where to look."

"But we can't look nowhere," another point, Naruto was on a roll. ". . . Well, if we don't have any ideas, we should ask someone else. . . . Let's ask Kakashi. I'll bet he's smarter-err than you are than me, and he knows Sakura real good."

I sighed, faced with the multitude of flaws in his idea of telling Kakashi that Sakura had run away and asking him where we should be looking to find her, not to mention the flaws in his sentence. I was about to say something to him, but he turned and started running. He was waving both his arms over his head, like a crazy baboon. "Kakashi! Kakashi!" he hollered, though there was no way the man could hear him.

X

Naruto knocked on the door, and we heard Kakashi's voice telling us to come in. We did go in, and Kakashi was sitting in his living room with only the light of a few candles. "I'm surprised to see you, here. What's up guys?" He was holding a rose, and he twirled it curiously between two fingers.

"Sakura ran away," Naruto said simply. He just said it. Even I was surprised, hearing it the way Naruto had said it.

Kakashi casually sniffed the rose, which he had placed up to his nose. "I know."

"How do you know?" Naruto asked, confused, but it never did take much to confuse him.

"Oh, I'll tell you, Kakashi said, sounding almost happy that Naruto had asked. He turned finally to look at us. "I know, because . . . She told me." Kakashi closed his eyes and gave us a funny smile, not that I would have laughed.

'Why would she tell you and not me?" I asked.

"Oh, I'll tell you that, too. Sakura said that if she told you, Sasuke, that she was going to run away, you would just think she was trying to get you to show some kind of feeling toward her. She didn't want her last image of you to be you calling her annoying, so she didn't tell you."

Naruto's face shrunk, and he said, Oh." He gave a discernable twitch, obviously expecting me to pound my fists into his head.

"She should have left you a note, though. I'm sure you must have read it."

Naruto had no clue, I hadn't shown it to him, he would probably have said something like, "I am the one for Sakura! Believe it!"

"When did Sakura tell you all this?" I kept my voice steady and unemotional . . . Somehow.

Kakashi put his nose into the dark red rose, again. The rose reminded me very much of Sakura. She did wear red, but she always had a bright, red glow about her. "This morning." I could see her telling Kakashi, and then going to train with us, before finally running away. "I even doubled the time you would have to train, hoping something would happen to prevent her from running away." I knew there had been some reason for the extra time we had spent on practicing our aim, practicing our jutsus, and even sparring a little, not to mention how cold it had been.

Sakura had told Kakashi she was running away. She had told him she would be leaving a not for them to read. I wondered what else he knew. "Kakashi, where is Sakura?"

"Well, you must have some idea where she might have run off to."

I could feel Naruto's eyes glancing over to me, before returning back to Kakashi's face. "No, we have nothing." There was that 'we', again.

"Ahh. Think harder."

After only a moment, Naruto spoke, "Maybe she ran to the Land of Tea. She seemed to like Idate." I knew, as soon as he said it, that he was wrong, but I was surprised Naruto had come up with an actual location with a legitimate reason for Sakura to have gone there. I had figured he was imagining Sakura, covered in mud, laying on the ground, in some forest. Perhaps he was smarter then I had thought. . . . Of course, he was still and idiot.

"Hmm. Well, let's go.," Kakashi said, standing up, the nose still held up to his face. I wondered what he meant by 'go'. Sakura couldn't have gone to the Land of Tea. Kakashi wouldn't have us go there, knowing she wasn't there, though. It was, after all, the only other place Naruto or I had been able to come up with.

Naruto looked at him with a confused face. "I thought you were sick."

"I am," Kakashi said, smelling the rose, once again. ". . . Lovesick," he added, and he pointed to the unconscious Iruka that was strapped to the other couch.

* * *

That's that. Don't worry, though. I'll update as soon as I can, and Sakura will not be lost in the dust of some seventeen chapters. P 


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